[trolling deleted]

Given it’s track record of demonising muslims at home and killing them abroad Labour would seem to be Israel’s natural ally in the UK.

Can’t think of any other party that would have reacted to the Israel’s war crimes in Gaza by offering to join in!

I have no problem with Israel’s right to exist. I’ve visited the country twice previously, and met a number of highly sound people there.

[And I've done the El Al security grilling several times. How severe? You've got to *want* to get on that plane]

My only wish is that Israel gets on with all its neighbours, and that includes the Palestinians.

Apparently the English translation for the term “hasbara” is “explanation”.

Evidently there are people, including those who self-define as “progressives”, who think the only reason the Israeli state has such an atrocious public image is that its not getting its message across properly. All they need to do is to “explain” colonisation, denial of democracy and self-determination, massacres, beatings, torture and so on, with a sufficiently liberal gloss, and then everyone will come round to their way of thinking. There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with any of those things that a good bit of PR won’t fix.

Do these people really want a two state solution? I’m prepared to be amazed. Let them come out in favour of total Israeli withdrawal behind the Green Line, and a Palestinian state with full control over its borders and airspace, and all the rights of any other state, appearing in the totality of the illegally occupied territories, in accordance with international law, coupled with substantial compensation and/or return for the refugees. In other words, lets see if these people really are left-liberal progressives.

I do hope this doesn’t count as “trolling” but you do know that Ben White doesn’t want a two state solution, don’t you?

Wouldn’t it be easier to acknowledge the Palestinian state and stop occupying Palestinian land – and then invade once Hamas started to attack again (because that would be a defensive war and much more justifiable?

Probably be a lot cheaper than trying to buy influence from the liberal-left (which presumably has to happen in nice restuarants…).

Be prepared for the Return of the Zombies – aka Progress, a Blairite (so-called) think-tank.

Progress isn’t some kind of LFI front, it’s just a hive of Blairite asininity. It suits it like a Bon Jovi tribute band suits leather.

Oh its definitely trolling cjcjc – and I expected it too. Stick with the topic.

I don’t want a “personal relationship” with Israel thanks all the same. I bet this has got Mossad finger prints all over it.

Not sure that any party of the left should be supporting pro “Zionist sentiment.”

Anyway, why to they need to worry what the European left has to say? As long as they have the entire United states govt acting as sugar daddy, they can do what they please.

Terminological question? What the hell does zionist actually mean any more? I just ask because I suspect everyone is using it differently (and I can’t figure out whether the zionists sally regards as people she does not want to support are the same as the zionists Martin Bright sees a growing left-wing dislike towards, which makes understanding the whole debate a bit difficult)?

Frankly those who support a two-state solution and are sympathetic to the Palestinians need to be wary of allying with those who want to see Israel abolished. the latter undermine the Palestinian cause and give justification to claims of anti-Semitism.

Ah, the anti-Israel = anti-semitism trope.

@Watchman

I have no problem with Zionism in it’s liberal variant. If LFI is shifting left on the issue of Israel/Palestine, then I’m all for it. But they’ve got to do it honestly.

I suspect what’s happened, is that LFI have been outflanked by the Tories, and in particular William Hague, as Chris Brown explains.

@5: “I do hope this doesn’t count as ‘trolling’ but you do know that Ben White doesn’t want a two state solution, don’t you?”

But he is not alone. Compare this:

Last week the Board of Deputies of British Jews – the elected representative body of our community – voted down a resolution declaring support for a two- state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. If you support Israel and support the two-state solution, please add your name to this open letter to the President of the Board of Deputies, Vivian Wineman.
[21 January 2011]
http://jfjfp.com/?p=20767

So it’s been for years, and it’s just cynical strategy, wind and piffle.

Ask Cameron why he’s selling weapons in the Middle East, and he’ll tell you it’s borderline racist to say the Arabs can’t handle democracy. Suggest that maybe the Israelis could tone it down with the non-productive ultraviolence, and you’ll get a load of waffle on Israel’s right to exist and to defend itself as a Jewish state, and so forth. Each response is about as honest as the other.

Of course, Israel’s “right to exist” is the same as any other state’s, and it’s about as imminently threatened; considerably less than most, in fact, since it’s backed up with billions of dollars in cutting-edge weaponry systems, up to and including nuclear warheads. That’s what I’d call a watertight insurance policy, right there.

“So it’s been for years, and it’s just cynical strategy, wind and piffle” . . meanwhile, building more and more Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian territory even if that risks terminating the fragile peace process to settle the conflict.

“Ah, the anti-Israel = anti-semitism trope.”

Depends what you mean by anti-Israel. If you mean “anti-Israeli government policies” then no. But if you mean “anti-Israel’s existence” then probably yes.

@18: “But if you mean ‘anti-Israel’s existence’ then probably yes.”

By received instructions from the government at the time, the UK representative at the the United Nations abstained in the vote on the partition of Palestine held on 29 November 1947 predicting that partititon of Palestine would lead to continuing conflict . . . But the UN voted in favour of partition with 33 votes in favor and 13 against:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Partition_Plan_for_Palestine

I would love to know what we get out of this relationship with Israel. Middle East states have lots of oil and lots of petrodollars to recycle, Israel has lots of grief. A change in British Middle East foreign policy is long overdue in light of the rapid changes occurring in the region.

[deleted]

What does this bring to mind when I read it?

Well, imagine if, 30 years ago the apartheid regime in South Africa had decided that they should respond to “the erosion in South Africa’s diplomatic status” by
“engaging the hearts and minds of liberal progressive elites” and “develop the ‘progressive case’ for apartheid” etc..

It would only have sounded marginally more absurd than this.

“About the author
This is a guest article. Ben White is a freelance journalist who has written for Guardian’s CIF, Electronic Intifada and others. His book ‘Israeli Apartheid: A Beginner’s Guide’ (Pluto Press), was published in 2009.”

Clearly no axe to grind … NOT.

The “about the author” information at the end of the post does lead me to believe that he may not be 100% impartial …

There is a critical need amongst members of the left to demonstrate that support for Israel does not bring automatic love of Netanyahu or Likud. Left-wing pro-Israel forces must argue the case for a Palestinian state whilst at the same time emphasising the legitimacy of Israel.

In short, it’s time the left stopped trying to be so trendy.

“There is a critical need amongst members of the left to demonstrate that support for Israel does not bring automatic love of Netanyahu or Likud.”

There is a critical need amongst members of the left to demonstrate that support for the Palestinians does not bring automatic love of Hamas or Hezbollah.

@25: “There is a critical need amongst members of the left to demonstrate that support for Israel does not bring automatic love of Netanyahu or Likud.”

Oh dear! Try this posted self-description by the Board of Deputies of British Jews:

The Board’s Constitution declares that the Board shall “take such appropriate action as lies within its power to advance Israel’s security, welfare and standing”. The Board’s policy is unchanged and it remains unwavering in its support for Israel. The Board completely stands behind the quest of Israel for a just and lasting negotiated peace and in particular behind the courageous stand of the present government as formulated by Prime Minister Netanyahu
http://www.bod.org.uk/

That looks like underwriting a blank cheque for support of Prime Minister Netanyahu and Likud regardess and certainly without the reservations of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks in that interview with The Guardian:

Britain’s chief rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, today delivers an unprecedentedly strong warning to Israel, arguing that the country is adopting a stance “incompatible” with the deepest ideals of Judaism, and that the current conflict with the Palestinians is “corrupting” Israeli culture.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2002/aug/27/israel.religion

@11 Watchman

That point about Zionism can be a useful starting point in thinking about Israel. Given that generations of Israelis have been born in Israel the original Zionist project has been de facto succesful: A Jewish state exists and more harm would be done trying to remove it than to acknowledge it as legitimate.

However, Israel has been following aggressive expanionist policies and policies aimed at destoying any chance of a Palestinian homeland. These policies can be seen as Neo-Zionist and can be reasonably opposed.

@ 27 Bob B

“Try this posted self-description by the Board of Deputies of British Jews”

I didn’t know the Board of Deputies of British Jews were representative of every pro-Israel person in the world. Thanks for the tip…

Alternatively, look up “anecdotal”.

@29: Alternatively, look up “anecdotal”.

I take it that the Board of Deputies of British Jews can be relied on when posting its own description of its intended aims and objectives, including its professed admiration of and support for Prime Minister Netanyahu.

@ 30 Bob B

“I take it that the Board of Deputies of British Jews can be relied on when posting its own description of its intended aims and objectives.”

Yes. But you posted the opinions of the BDBJ in response to Tacitus’s statement that: “There is a critical need amongst members of the left to demonstrate that support for Israel does not bring automatic love of Netanyahu or Likud.”

So… are you saying that the BDBJ’s statement proves Tacitus wrong? Or is it just a non-sequiter?

@31: “So… are you saying that the BDBJ’s statement proves Tacitus wrong? Or is it just a non-sequiter?”

I felt fairly confident that most readers here would be able to draw their own conclusions about the ODBJ’s unstinting support for Prime Minister Netanyahu with all that entailed.

Neo just means “new” you know.

It doesn’t mean “eeeeeeeeevil” !

Why not use, eg, “expansionist” ?

Perhaps Bob B isn’t familiar with the expression: two wrongs don’t make a right?

@34: “Perhaps Bob B isn’t familiar with the expression: two wrongs don’t make a right?”

I’m thoroughly familiar with that proverbial saying but one of the parties in the continuing Palestine dispute persistently attempts to portray the other party as the embodiment of evil while covering up its own long, lamentable history of atrocities and war crimes and dubbing any who mention and document that history as antisemites. Let’s recall also that Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated in 1995 by an Israeli for his endeavours in pushing a peace process.

@ Bob B

“I felt fairly confident that most readers here would be able to draw their own conclusions about the ODBJ’s unstinting support for Prime Minister Netanyahu with all that entailed.”

So it’s a non-sequiter.

Let me clarify: the board’s opinion does not represent all pro-Israel people, so it makes no sense to use it to counter Tacitus’s point. No, not even if you preface the statement with “oh dear!” for no reason whatsoever. Surely you can grasp this?

The use of “neo” in my posting was not intended to indicate evil, but that there was a newer form of Zionism.

If the distinction was lost on you then, well, diddums.

Has LC banned the word Jew? Because every time I post with the word Jew in it you take it down. Do you think that Jews don’t live in Israel?

It is no good pretending that there are no Jews in the UK and the US. And they don’t have a huge say in what our policy is to Israel. The Conservative party and the Labour party have many Jews as supporters.

I think it is really unhelpful to characterise either side as right or wrong. The people that are really “right” are the peace loving people who accept the need for comprimise and just want to get things sorted. Unfortunatley there are groups on both sides that don’t want to see this happen.

One can be anti-zionist and also think that Israel has a right to exist – but not as an apartheid state.

how ironic after that little outburst that Sally’s favourite term of abuse is “brownshirt”

how ironic

Apparently there is no connection between Israel and Jews. They have nothing at all to do with each other. We can use the word Israel, but we must not point out that it is Jewish state with lots of Jews in it. Also we are not allowed to point how successful and peaceful many Jews in both the UK and the US are, and that they can live their lives in peace and are able to rise to the very top in business, the arts, etc etc.

That old anti Semitism attack must terrify LC. But then when people like the cjcjc troll use it we can see why.

You can’t have a debate about Israel, if you don’t talk about Jews.

I repeat, how ineffably ironic.

Sally in her true colours.

Sorry cj i’m puzzled. Is Israel a Jewish State or not?

Cjcjc, there’s a difference between mentioning the word “Jew” and, well, being a perpetrator of the Holocaust. Stop being so PC-gone-mad.

This is going down a pleasant road.

@ 45

What road would that be?

Are you about to tell me off for singing Baa Baa Black Sheep?

“You can’t have a debate about Israel, if you don’t talk about Jews.”

Go on then; talk away. I’m all ears.

Yes, just checked, and apparently being a Jewish state is no. 1 with being democratic in 2nd place.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Jewish_and_Democratic_State

So being as Israel is a, or even the, Jewish State, you reckon this State should automatically get a free pass from any criticism whatever, forever?

Perfect. A dictators’ paradise!

Cjcjc troll plays the anti Semitism card.

Or maybe he is just so stupid he does not know that Israel is a Jewish state.

Now I wonder which one it could be?

Carry on Sally; you said we need to talk about Jews, so…talk.

What do you have to say?

@336: “Surely you can grasp this?”

I’m evidently altogether too stupid to grasp what you are on about.

I thought readers here would be absolutely fascinated to learn that the Board of Deputies of British Jews opposes a two-state solution to the Palestine conflict and gives Prime Minister Netanyahu unqualified support, even though the present Israeli government is manifestly unable or unwilling to prevent the extension of Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian territory, contrary to international law, and despite the high risk of aborting the fragile Palestine peace process.

But I was pleased and reassured to read that Jews for Justice to Palestinians had registered a protest to the position of the BDBJ and could report that it did not represent the majority opinion of British jews – all of which leaves independent bystanders wondering just who and what the BDBJ represents.

It’s a great pity that this discussion has been sidelined by trolls. I would seriously ask people just to ignore them. They devalue so much that starts well in LC.

@ 51 Bob B

Sigh. You’re still backpedaling. I’m asking you what your point was in the content of post 27. That’s the one that starts like this:

“@25: “There is a critical need amongst members of the left to demonstrate that support for Israel does not bring automatic love of Netanyahu or Likud.”

Oh dear! Try this posted self-description by the Board of Deputies of British Jews:”

Please explain the point you were trying to make, why it was relevant to the part of post 25 that you cited, and what you meant by “oh dear”.

I don’t think you’re stupid. I think you’re fillibustering.

Of course, dismissing posters as trolls – or antisemites – is so much easier (and facile) than responding to the cases they make. It’s a tactic I’m thoroughly familiar with in the course of the periodic online debates about the Palestine conflict. It illuminates also why so little progress is made in resolving the conflict as well as why the atrocities and war crimes continue.

FWIW I’m sceptical about the prospects for any progress in resolving the Palestine conflict unless Israel is declared a pariah state by the international community in the way that apartheid South Africa was.

@53: “I don’t think you’re stupid. I think you’re fillibustering.”

The conflicting positions on resolving the Palestine conflict between the Board of Deputies of British Jews and Jews for Justice for Palestinians make it indisputably clear that there is no consensus among jews in Britain, a fact which I find immensely comforting.

In that context, calls for “Friends of Israel” to reach out to “the left” don’t make a great deal of sense. Gerald Kaufman is a declared friend of Israel but also highly critical of the policies on Palestine and Palestinians of successive Israeli governments:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMGuYjt6CP8

@ Bob B

Fine. But what’s your objection to the idea that “support for Israel does not bring automatic love of Netanyahu or Likud”?

@56: “But what’s your objection to the idea that ‘support for Israel does not bring automatic love of Netanyahu or Likud’?”

C’mon. Netanyahu or Likud amount to the government of Israel and since the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, there hasn’t been much to choose between Likud and the Israeli Labour Party. Barak, the last Labour PM of Israel, is the current defence minister in a coalition government dominated by Likud.

It reads rather oddly to declare resounding, unqualified support for Israel while disowning the fundamental policies on Palestine and Palestinians of successive Israeli governments.

Wow, we are being disingenuous, aren’t we?

You know perfectly well that quite a number of people, including Mr White, would like to see Israel disappear into the (disaster that would be the) one state “solution”.
Perhaps you are amongst them.

It is therefore sadly rather necessary and certainly perfectly possible to declare unqualified support for the existence of Israel – indeed how amazing that such support really needs to be declared (which other state is subject to repeated calls for it to just disappear?) – while not supporting a particular set of policies.

@ 57

Ah. So you (rightly) condemn people who call pro-Palestinians “anti-Semitic”, but basically commit the opposite offense when it comes to those who side with Israel.

@ Bob B

In the interests of clarity – and giving credit where it is due – we at JfJfP – publicised a letter circulated by other members of the Jewish community in the UK protesting the (very close) vote by the Board of Deputies of British Jews against a two state solution.

JfJfP has been around for the best part of a decade. What is interesting now is that there are BoD members who wanted to nail their organisation’s colours to the two-state mast, that a letter of protest garnered over 1000 signatures and a meeting with the BoD’s dovish president Vivian Wineman and that figures such as Mick Davis, chair of the prominent Jewish charity UJIA can make comments about Israel’s policies that are deeply critical and echo some of those made since 2002 by JfJfP.

Given that so many British Jews have a liberal political outlook, the contribution of Netanyahu and Lieberman to this new degree of criticism cannot be underestimated.

As for the one or two state solution, Leila Sansour, of Open Bethlehem put it best when she spoke at last year’s JfJfP AGM. I paraphrase, because I do not have a transcript of her remarks, but defending the two state solution she said “don’t give away Palestinian sovereignty before we have had the opportunity to exercise it.”

@58: “It is therefore sadly rather necessary and certainly perfectly possible to declare unqualified support for the existence of Israel ”

What would unqualified support for the existence of Israel amount to?

The devil, as so often, is in the detail. It may be “perfectly possible” to declare unqualified support for Israel but on precisely what territorial boundaries, on what civil rights for Arab citizens of Israel, on what policy concerning the return of illegal settlements on occupied Palestinian territory, on what right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homeland …

In the absence of binding answers to those fundamental issues, offering “unqualified support” to Israel is rather like signing a blank cheque in Israel’s favour.

IMO sensible folk with no prior vested interest in Israel will firmly turn that option down. And btw, it’s not me who needs acceptable responses on those issues but the Palestinians.

@10 sally: “why do they need to worry what the European left has to say?”

If Europe wanted to, they could very easily make things very difficult for Israel.

Another factor is the likely conversion of much of the Arab world to democracy. Israel won’t be able to say they’re the only democracy in the middle east any more (not that that’s actually a point in their favour — all it means is that a large portion of the Israeli public are culpable in their misdeeds), nor will they be able to credibly argue that they’re a bulwark against Islamic fundamentalism.

No idea how to submit images in, but there are those in Israel pushing a different, but very, very nasty version of a one state solution. An ad in today’s online Haaretz called on people to sign a petition calling on King Abdullah of Jordan to “return the Palestinians to their rightful home in Jordan.”

@61 Bob B

I think the statement and intent is pretty unambiguous: unqualified support for the existence of the state if Israel does not equate with unqalified acceptance of the policies of the current Israeli government, nor does it equate to unqualified acceptance of the wildest dreams of Eretz Israel.

Of course there should be no blank cheque for Israel. Unless someone comes up with a better workable solution than the two state one, there is no viable alternative. The exact borders can be negotiated, but of the issues you mention the most problematic is the right of return for Palestinians to former homes within the pre-1967 Israeli borders, and (one you don’t mention) the status of E. Jerusalem.

Those are the two issues which will be hardest to crack, even if all the others are solved. There is no viable one state solution, because not enough of either the Israeli or Palestinian people are in favour of it.

“No idea how to submit images in, but there are those in Israel pushing a different, but very, very nasty version of a one state solution. An ad in today’s online Haaretz called on people to sign a petition calling on King Abdullah of Jordan to “return the Palestinians to their rightful home in Jordan.””

When the West Bank was occupied by Jordan, which Palestinian organisations were calling for its liberation?

(None. Pre 1967 claims to Palestine excluded the West Bank)

“Unless someone comes up with a better workable solution than the two state one, there is no viable alternative.”

I agree – but the promoters of this ad and petition don’t/

@ Sally

“Also we are not allowed to point how successful and peaceful many Jews in both the UK and the US are, and that they can live their lives in peace and are able to rise to the very top in business, the arts, etc etc”.

…Or that antisemitism is on the rise in Britain and the rest of Europe, especially in places with rising Muslim populations like Malmo and Amsterdam, which are correspondingly leaving Europe.

So no need for a state where Jews can live without the threat of rising persecution by the majority, then. Got it… If you want them all dead.

In any case, of course you are allowed to point whatever you want. Jews do live peacefully and successfully in the US but in other countries things are getting progressively worse. That can be argued over, but no one is ‘not allowing’ you to do so, so stop playing the martyr.

Clarification:

“…which are correspondingly leaving Europe” meant to say “…whose Jewish populations are correspondingly leaving Europe.

67 so why was my post taken down earlier then?

@64: “unqualified support for the existence of the state if Israel does not equate with unqalified acceptance of the policies of the current Israeli government, nor does it equate to unqualified acceptance of the wildest dreams of Eretz Israel.”

You may say that but very likely that won’t be the way that Likud and its supporters choose to construe declarations of unqualified support for the existence of Israel BEFORE the issues of international boundaries, the Israeli settlements on Palestine territory, the right of return of the refugees and the rest have been resolved.

I don’t think my position is substantially different from that of the British government in November 1947 when it abstained in the vote in the United Nations assembly on the partition of Palestine, warning that partition would lead to continuing conflict, which it has.

I reflect sometimes on what international reaction might be if some extremist party won a general election here and decreed that citizenship rights would henceforth be restricted to ethnic British Christians – and btw only those whose mothers were British Christians would qualify.

‘Like all the huff and puff about ‘delegitimization’, this “progressive case” for Israel is unlikely to fare well as long as the Israeli state controls the lives of millions of Palestinians in an apartheid-system of control and discrimination. I’m not sure who they’re trying to kid.’

Who are you trying to kid? You are working assiduously to stop any Israeli putting the case for their state e.g. your insisting the Cambridge Jewish society drop their invitation to Benny Morris. All the while being perfectly happy to stand on platforms with characters like Azzam Tamimi.

How do you manage to square that with your universalist-Christian and non-violent ethic?

Benny Morris did very well against Azzam Tamimi in Helskinki:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ok4BfYbZ5Mo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtPu66JFSG8&feature=related

Maybe one day you will give him the pleasure, instead of trying to shut him up?

The only time you volunteered for a debate was with Alex Stein on CIF, and you got your backside kicked:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/sep/24/israelandthepalestinians.middleeast

You’ve never volunteered since. You’re maybe Cambridge educated in English, Ben, but you don’t do very well in debates. You have to rely on straw premises, such as ‘Israel maintains an exclusivist claim to the land’, defining Zionism in as extreme a form as possible, while whitewashing Palestinian Arab history and claims.

These things are very easy to demolish in a debate, which is why you stay out of them. You’d rather debate with yourself.

@ 70 Bob B

I think you’re missing my point. You are equating unqualified acceptance of the right of the state of Israel to exist, with unqualified acceptance of ALL actions of the Israeli government or state.

In the end, only the Israelis and Palestinians themselves can negotiate a settlement. The international community can play a part of course. At present, the borders recognised by the international community are those of Israel between 1948 and 67, i.e. excluding the West Bank, Gaza and E. Jersualem.

I don’t think many people actually believe a one-state solution is feasible, so if a two-state solution is realistically the only game in town it all comes down to a matter of agreeing the details, and ensuring that both states can normalise their relations and not act as a focus for tension in the region and more widely.

Insisting on a right of return is a non-starter; it’s as hopeless as insisting that the Jews who fled or were expelled from Arab states were accorded the same rights.

It’s all very well referring back to “what iffery” about the UN vote in 1947, but what concrete, achievable steps would you advocate to bring about a solution that both parties might actually accept?

@ 69 Sally

“so why was my post taken down earlier then?”

Given your tendency to call everyone else on the thread a Nazi, brownshirt or Tory troll at least four times per post, I’m not exactly surprised that sometimes your contributions get deleted.

‘I don’t think many people actually believe a one-state solution is feasible’

Ben White insists on pushing it, for all his rather recent and mealy mouthed acceptance of two states (albeit a very temporary Israel, shortly to be ended by a Palestinian Arab majority, either by ending a Jewish right of return, or implementing a Palestinian one).

He professes ‘justice’, often, and one state as the most just solution, but his justice is decidedly one sided i.e. constitutes injustice. He finds every Israeli, Palestinian and Zionist Jewish sin he can, but is virtually blind to Palestinian Arab ones.

Just as hard cases make bad law, these kind of issues make for bad international relations. It easy to understand the emotional aspect of such disputes to those directly involved, who are impacted daily by events in Palestine and Israel, and have been directly affected by the issue.

What is often more difficult to ascertain are the motives of those NOT directly impacted, and to assess to what extent they are capable of acting as disinterested or neutral arbiters. Any of the proposed solutions to this dispute will have losers and winners; nobody is going to get everything they want. The challenge for people of goodwill on the outside (and indeed within in Israel and Palestine) is to identify the “best realistic settlement zone”, and ensure the wing nuts on both sides can be neutralised.

It’s not an easy process, but it can be done. I’m sure many people thought the situation in Northern Ireland wasn’t solveable, or that South Africa would turn into a bloodbath after the fall of the apratheid regime.

I think it’s important not to give up hope, irrespective of the entrenched positions of the day. With luck we will see the rise of more secular, democratic regimes in the Arab world, and one day look back on the current situation much as people in Western Europe look back in disbelief on their war torn past.

‘The challenge for people of goodwill on the outside (and indeed within in Israel and Palestine) is to identify the “best realistic settlement zone”, and ensure the wing nuts on both sides can be neutralised.’

I totally agree with that, but, if your read Ben White in that link I give, he isn’t happy with something like the Geneva Initiative.

Ben White wants what PSC wants: the end of Zionist state which, practically speaking, is an end to Zionism and a Jewish state.

He wants the dissolution of the one Jewish state in the world, for its alleged apartheid qualities; into the surrounding sea/desert of Arab, Islamic states and societies, including the Palestinian; which, based on their histories, of at least the last 100 years, with regard to Jews at least, can only be described as apartheid.

That is what is fundamentally unjust about Ben White’s goals and objectives.

@ conchovor

Meh… you will (sadly) always get manichaeans like Mr. White who see an injustice and think that the way to sort it, is to countenance another.

Sadly, the light is, to some, an unwelcome friend.

‘Like all the huff and puff about ‘delegitimization’, this “progressive case” for Israel is unlikely to fare well as long as the Israeli state controls the lives of millions of Palestinians in an apartheid-system of control and discrimination. I’m not sure who they’re trying to kid.’

Perhaps if you hadn’t been so assiduous in trying to sabotage any process whereby that could come about e.g. the Geneva Accord, which you dismissed, crusading, rather, to abort Zionism and its lone Jewish state, surrounded or besieged by a host of, by your criteria, apartheid Arab, Islamic states and societies, including the Palestinian, your rhetorical huff and puff might carry more weight.

Good liberals should always try & support countries that are liberal , israel is a beacon in that area in all measures of human rights , james

Ron Prosor said that those who cross red lines e.g. connect with Iranian Holocaust denial should be flagged.

One cannot help but recall Ben White’s apology for Ahmadinejad’s Holocaust denial and castigation of those who found fault with it:

http://www.benwhite.org.uk/2006/01/10/history-myths-and-all-the-news-thats-fit-to-print/

‘It could be argued, therefore, that the comments made by Ahmadinejad in recent months are not anti-Semitic, and instead, throw rhetorical barbs at a subject that is taboo in Western nations, namely, the complex relationship between the Holocaust, anti-Semitism in Europe, Zionism’s beginnings, and continued support for Israel. The reaction to the Iranian President’s thoughts on Israel is even stranger considering the genuine grounds for criticism that exist. The Iranian regime has closed numerous newspapers, and severe restrictions remain on freedom of expression. Internet use is monitored and limited, and homosexuals are executed. Most in the West would want to oppose the very ‘theocratic’ nature of the government itself.

Despite all that, what casts doubt over negotiations with Iran over its nuclear policy, is not its human rights abuses, but the President’s views on Zionism. A country was threatened with censorship and sanction, not because of its actions but on account of the political opinions of its leader (even assuming they were not misinterpreted). In exactly the same week as the furore over Ahmadinejad’s Holocaust remarks, a UK inquest delivered its unanimous verdict that British UN worker Iain Hook had been killed by the Israeli army in Jenin in a “deliberate” act. Another crime in a long list, yet that week, it was Iran being condemned by the international community – on account of a speech.

This very week, there was a small story in the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz about a conference taking place in Acre about “finding ways to achieve a permanent Jewish majority” in the city. One of the organisers for the conference is described as believing that “Acre has the right to exist as a mixed city only if it has a permanent Jewish majority”. For Arabs to be labelled a ‘demographic threat’ is par for the course in the Israeli political establishment. But don’t expect Israel’s open support for, and implementation of, occupation, colonisation, and racial discrimination, to come under the same scrutiny as Ahmadinejad’s remarks on European history. Because that would be anti-Semitic, right?’

Eh, yeah, Ben, te reason a leader’s remarks often come under greater scrutiny than the Average Joe’s is because he is the one with the power to do something about them.

And note the vicious insinuation that scrutiny of the leader’s remarks is somehow to be complicit with the oppression of the Average Joe.

More myth making that Israel and/or Zionism is somehow the root cause of Arab or Middle Eastern oppression or absence of democracy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GM2n4OFeI3Y

‘ in the words of a member of the Council of Christians and Jews, interfaith dialogue is not well served ‘by being coy about what we believe to be true.’ ‘

Absolutely right, Ben. Which is why Jerry Haber

‘an orthodox Jewish philosophy professor, pointed out on his website in August: ‘When Jews, and I mean here liberal Jews, are open to religious dialogue with Christians and Muslims, they have no difficulty in respecting difference. But when it comes to Israel, they demand that the other side accept the Zionist narrative, or, at the very least, be open to accepting’

is a little inconsistent in insisting that Jews be open to your Palestinian Arab Muslim and Christian nationalist narrative, but not the converse.

‘Despite the fact that Kairos Palestine was carefully-crafted contextual theology from a threatened minority, speaking to the heart of one the most contentious conflicts in the world, the response from the Palestinians’ Christian brothers and sisters has been mixed.’

Perhaps because there was some glaring flaws and omissions in that theology, highly ‘contextual’ and highly ‘crafted’, precisely to (obvious) comparison with Palestinian Arab Muslim and Christian exile and dispossession and that the exile and dispossession of Jewscthat Christians have assumed from earliest Christian times: certainly almost all the Church Fathers, indeed arguably Luke 21, 20-24

’20 And when you shall see Jerusalem compassed about with an army, then know that the desolation thereof is at hand. 21 Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains: and those who are in the midst thereof depart out: and those who are in the countries not enter into it. 22 For these are the days of vengeance, that all things may be fulfilled, that are written. 23 But woe to them that are with child and give suck in those days: for there shall be great distress in the land and wrath upon this people. 24 And they shall fall by the edge of the sword and shall be led away captives into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down by the Gentiles till the times of the nations be fulfilled.’

These highly ‘crafted’ and ‘contextualized’ omissions are all the more glaring since, if one reads the earliest Palestinian Arab Muslim and Christian nationalist literature, that the Jews are a nation dispossessed of their land for their sins is assumed, as indeed that Palestinian Christians and Muslims have been conversely blessed with it for their superior virtue.

A truly justly crafted and contextualized theology would allow some measure of sin/wrong doing in Palestinian Arab Muslims and Christians ‘resisting’ Jews’ living in the land in other than the tiny numbers to which they thought themselves divinely accustomed and entitled. Never mind trying to drive them out or kill them.

Sorry, the quotes were from this article of Ben’s:

http://www.benwhite.org.uk/2010/12/06/towards-a-just-peace/

You might enjoy this take on Adalah, Ben White:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHqfabr_X7I